Category Archives: China

“MIAOMIAO LAKE VILLAGE, China — Ankle-deep sand blocked the door of their new home. Pushing bicycles through the yard was like wading in a bog. The “lake” part of Miaomiao Lake Village turned out to be nothing but a tiny oasis more than a mile from the cookie-cutter rows of small concrete-block houses.

Ma Shiliang, a village doctor whose family was among some 7,000 Hui Muslims whom the Chinese government had brought to this place from their water-scarce lands in the country’s northwest, said officials promised “we would get rich.” Instead, these people who once herded sheep and goats over expansive hills now feel like penned-in animals, listless and uncertain of their future.“If we had known what it was like, we wouldn’t have moved here,” said Dr. Ma, 41, who, three years on, has been unable to get a job practicing medicine in Miaomiao Lake Village or to find other reliable work.”

“In the Tengger Desert, China — This desert, called the Tengger, lies on the southern edge of the massive Gobi Desert, not far from major cities like Beijing. The Tengger is growing.For years, China’s deserts spread at an annual rate of more than 1,300 square miles. Many villages have been lost. Climate change and human activities have accelerated desertification. China says government efforts to relocate residents, plant trees and limit herding have slowed or reversed desert growth in some areas. But the usefulness of those policies is debated by scientists, and deserts are expanding in critical regions.

Nearly 20 percent of China is desert, and drought across the northern region is getting worse. One recent estimate said China had 21,000 square miles more desert than what existed in 1975 — about the size of Croatia. As the Tengger expands, it is merging with two other deserts to form a vast sea of sand that could become uninhabitable.”

The pictures and video are first rate, beautiful, but haunting. This is a magnificent piece of bad news.

I have been moved by study to support negative population growth, because we are in the Anthropocene, and the Sixth Extinction, which is the accelerated lost of biodiversity on the planet. There are good arguments for this position in Dan Brown’s latest thriller, Inferno, which is a good read, and about to hit theaters in the US.

We watched the debate, and Hillary impressed us greatly, as expected. Donald turned our stomach, as expected.

I decided after reading the editorial below, not to post it. I had posted the NYT editorials endorsing Hillary, and condemning Donald, yesterday on blog 1, Inconvenient News. Then I read this comment, which I had to post:

Yuri Asian

If self-medicating works the proof it can be found in Trump’s deflated fans who proclaim his victory.

My mom — almost 100 now — is Chinese from a generation taught to defer to men and view unfavorably women who achieve prominence. In her mind and from her culture there’s a natural order and women aren’t part of it. That’s despite her degree from St. John’s University in Shanghai, regarded as the “Harvard of China.” Despite being a single immigrant woman, raising two sons while…

Photo above: “Steel pipe products in China’s Hebei Province. China’s steel production has “become completely untethered from real market demand” and amounts to more than double the combined production of the four next biggest producers: Japan, India, the United States and Russia, according to a new report on China’s production overcapacity released by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.”Credit Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters via NYT

“China’s steel production, for example, has “become completely untethered from real market demand” and amounts to more than double the combined production of the four next biggest producers: Japan, India, the United States and Russia, according to a new report on China’s production overcapacity released by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.”

This story reports that 30 million Chinese in steel and coal sector, 15%, might get laid off in next two years.

U.S. threatens 260% tariff on Chinese steel being dumped in the US market, reports NPR.

Important piece by Michael Buckley, NYT. The U.S. should study these issues from the perspective of China’s neighbors downstream. The most popular comment to date:
Michael
Zhanjiang, PRC “The water wars of the 21st century are just beginning and the countries with the best militaries will prevail. Sadly hardly a govt. in the world is willing to discuss the real problem which is that there are just way too many people. Closer to home, take the situation in California where despite the drought we are still adding more homes and people and the govt. has as of yet to come with any sensible plans for dealing the the desertification that is occurring.”

It might be time to start a trade war with China to support Tibetan independence, and a China-free South China Sea. It might be good to start by finding a new name for the sea…